Christmas 2013

Happy New Year to all of you and, for those of you in the Northeast, Happy the-temperature-is- supposed-to-reach-over-0-degrees Day.  (But right now it is still -18).

This is always one of the hardest posts for me to compile since Christmas is rather a massive event in our lives. There are three Christmases (ours, and then one with each of our families) and we notoriously take way too many pictures.  It took me 2 hours just to weed through the 300 pictures taken over the week.  

So I am not going to summarize or tell stories but instead just share the pictures and a few thoughts otherwise this post won't be ready until February.  

Resounding thoughts on Christmas of 2013:  

- I have never been so thankful to have power and heat.  So many people were without power from the ice storm (our friends the Smiths were without it for 8 days over Christmas...) and I felt very fortunate to not have to be dealing with that kind of stress.  We felt so lucky to have our power that I dare say we even flaunted it a bit by using our electricity to power our ice cream maker when it was like 3 degrees out.  I think that is the definition of ridiculous.  In fact if you look up the word ridiculous in the dictionary you will probably see a picture of us spooning homemade chocolate ice cream into our mouths whilst wearing flannel, wool, fleece and mittens.  

-Our kids need to do some charity work.  ASAP.  It was glaringly obvious throughout the Christmas celebrations that they do not have the perspective we want them to have. I will no longer blame them for this since we shelter them so much but instead find ways for them to understand what being less fortunate means and to cultivate the love of giving. 

-Red wine and meditation are holiday must-haves for me.  I was much more chilled out this year and even when I got wound up or overwhelmed I found I could easily bring myself back to the present.  This is sort of a Christmas miracle and showed me that the immense work I have put in is paying off.

-I think I might like to try a Christmas where no gifts are exchanged.

- We have entered fully into tween-hood and I am frightened on all levels.

-We are so very blessed to have such love and joy and laughter in our lives.  I hope to always be amazed and appreciative of this.  I hope I never stop standing in wonder at my life.

Okay, so pace yourself.  Here come the pictures.

Christmas at our house:

Sprinkling reindeer food on the snowy lawn.

Our new niece: Jax.  

Christmas on Beals:

Sandi was a tomboy when she was a kid.  Her family used to go to a lot of sporting events and when she would go into the ladies room women would stop her and say something like, "Excuse me little boy, this is the ladies room."  So her mom made her a tshirt to wear and on the front it says, "I'm a girl" and this is what it says on the back.  Her mom wrapped it up and gave it to her for Christmas.  

Christmas with my family had to be rescheduled 3 times due to the crazy winter storms we have had here in Maine.  Finally we celebrated on New Year's which was more fun anyway.

My family is known to have spontaneous dance parties.

My mom with the painting Ella gave her.

We have a tradition of making gifts with my family.  This year we made fleece tie blankets for Michaela and Braeden and then loved them.  They made quilts for our girls' American Girl dolls.  Adorable. 

The unveiling of the giant sled my mom got for the girls.

Here's to hoping your holidays were everything you wanted them to be and that you were as happy to take your tree down as I was!